In this episode of Definitely Maybe Agile, Peter Maddison and David Sharrock explore the nuances of product backlogs in agile environments. They discuss the tension between emergent backlogs and fixed feature sets, the importance of backlog management, and various prioritization techniques, including "buy a feature" and impact-effort matrices.
This week's takeaways:
- Separate tactical (near-term) and strategic backlogs to reduce psychological pressure and maintain focus - avoid creating extensive long-term backlogs that will likely become irrelevant.
- Stakeholder prioritization must be balanced with technical constraints and team capabilities - product owners should communicate changes in delivery order transparently to maintain trust.
- Regular backlog refinement should include archiving rejected items instead of deleting them, helping teams avoid repeatedly addressing the same requests while keeping the active backlog manageable.
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